Public Works Seeking 15% Budget Hike

February 11, 2005|By DON STACOM; Courant Staff Writer

BRISTOL — The public works department says it needs to modernize more of its fleet, maintain municipal buildings better, repair more streets and complete the city's transition to automated trash removal next year.

And doing all of that will cost money. The department is proposing an $11.1 million budget, up nearly 15 percent from this year.

``There's a real need this year. Some things have been deferred in other years, and now we have to get to them,'' Director Walter Veselka said after the public works board endorsed the budget proposal Thursday evening.

Before the meeting, Mayor Gerard Couture said that public works funding had been reduced for too many years.

``We have to do some catch-up now,'' he said.

Veselka's plan would give his department $1.4 million in additional funds next year, with nearly all of that increase going to buy new trucks or to fund large-scale maintenance work. Unlike most municipal departments, the public works operation is proposing to reduce its payroll slightly next year.

Bristol has gradually been converting its garbage collection system to use automated trucks that can be operated by a driver working alone. They replace traditional garbage trucks, which require three-worker crews.

That change has enabled public works to reduce its staff through attrition, so the salary account is proposed to drop by 0.5 percent -- even after providing pay raises for the remaining staff.

Veselka acknowledged that his budget request is large, but said the increase isn't as big as it appears. The finance board last year reduced public works spending from the previous year's level, settling on a 2004-2005 budget of $9.7 million. That included no money for new garbage trucks. But over the summer, the finance board authorized purchasing a pair of trucks with about $640,000 from the municipal contingency account and other special funds.

However, that $640,000 expense didn't appear on the department's budget. If it had been included, the department's budget for this year would have totaled $10.3 million. And compared with that figure, Veselka's new request for $11.1 million would represent an increase in the range of 8 to 9 percent.

The public works board said it wants to spend about $1 million next year to buy two more automated trash-removal trucks and to replace two outdated street sweepers and a dump truck. In addition, the board is proposing to spend about $350,000 to maintain and repair city buildings, compared with just $62,500 in this year's budget.

Veselka said the schedule for building and street repairs must be accelerated to prevent increasingly costly deterioration.